Take Your Daughter to Work Day
by phfina
Summary: Chapter summary: So, ZeiraCorp's mascot is a six-foot long silver sea snake that looks out over everybody working. What do they feed it, I wonder? Engineers that don't meet their quotas or something? Ha, ha! That would be so funny if it were true. Actually not. Not funny, I mean. And not true, too, right? I guess.
1. Uh

**Chapter summary: **It's Take Your Daughter to Work Day, where daughters are supposed to be interested in watching their parents not know what to do with them at work, just like at home. _Boring!_ Except ... today wasn't boring. I suddenly wished it were.

* * *

"Ma!" I shouted, "I have to _go!"_

Mom and Dad were still asleep in bed. I had swim practice, God damn it! I can't be late. Not today!

"Uh!" Mom said, looking at me through slit eyes. "Ur not going to school today. Yer goin' ta work!"

She threw her head back onto her pillow next to Dad.

She had just made no sense at all. Again.

What happened to adults? Suddenly they stopped making sense. Maybe I had grown up, and maybe I had started asking questions adults didn't want to answer.

Maybe because they didn't have the answers, and that's embarrassing, isn't it? You get asked a question in class, and you don't know the answer to, and that's embarrassing.

But when your own kid does that to you, what do you do?

Get all ... adult-like, right? Get all angry and impatient with you, for asking questions that don't concern you, 'cause you're not old enough to understand.

Yeah, whatever.

"Mom, Dad!" I said, "Seriously! Let's go!"

Mom grunted again, and smacked Dad, hard, on the chest.

Her arm was as thick as my leg, and the sound it made when it hit him reverberated through his body echoed throughout the bedroom.

Dad eyes drew open, he looked at me blearily. "Take your daughter to work day," he said slowly, pronouncing each word precisely.

My jaw must have hit the floor. "You have ... _got_ ... to be kidding me!" I shouted.

Dad pulled the alarm clock and put it in front of his bleary eyes, then threw it on the floor.

"God!" he moaned. "Just a half-hour, please, Chlō! Eat some breakfast or something!"

Then he, too, threw his head back on the pillow and was snoring, in, I shit you not, three breaths.

I turned to head downstairs to face this hell of a day. _Take your daughter to work day?! GREAT!_ I get to sit around all day, _not_ at school, and pretend like I gave a shit whenever one of Daddy's patients come into the waiting room!

_Fuck!_

And what if one of them want to make friendly and talk to me? Is 'crazy' contagious? I'm not supposed to even think that. Daddy's patients aren't 'crazy.' They just have 'difficulty' 'adjusting' to the difficulties they're facing in their lives.

In short: bat-shit crazy. So okay, your mom died or your dad was mean to you, or you lost your job, or you were in combat, or _whatever!_ Well, I say, join the _God-damn human race! _And quit paying Daddy all this money to put me through college.

Fucking got my ride off all the crazy Daddy talked to every day. Fine. Whatever. But he wants me to follow in his footsteps and do a good turn for the world?

Fuck that. I'm like: why? Has the world ever done a good turn for me? For us?

Mom's voice called out to me. _"An' you eat sommin', young lady, you ain't gonna get no boyfren' lookin' like dat, twiggie-stick!"_

I almost fell down the steps. I put my hand on the rail, to stop me tripping over myself down the steps, then I balled my other hand up into a fist and shoved it into my mouth to muffle my scream.

_Boyfriend? Boyfriend? _I'm fucking fifteen, for _fuck's sake!_ I'm gonna graduate high school _and college _as the valedictorian _first!_

Mom was worrying about me already, and _I'm fucking fifteen! Just because I don't have a fucking boyfriend yet and every other girl does doesn't make me GAY! AND EVERY OTHER GIRL DOESN'T ALREADY, EITHER! SOME GIRLS care more about more than getting preggers at fourteen, Mom!_

'Cause for your information, a condom doesn't always work. Plenty of proof of that, and no, I don't wanna have a baby nor an abortion _in my frosh year of high school!_

These conversations were so old, and so tired, I had screamed and cried myself out over them enough times already. I did _not_ want to have this hum-dinger of a conversation, again.

Not today. Oh, God, not today, on fucking _take your daughter to work day, _of all days.

Fuck my life.

...

Sullen.

I looked the part, arms crossed, head down, and did I have phone ...

Okay: phone _privileges?_ It's a fucking right! But no. Mom found I had snapchat, and is that a fucking crime? Everybody has snapchat! But she said no snapchat, because she didn't want me to look at boys' penises all day on the phone, because that was wrong but not having a boyfriend and concentrating on grades was wrong, too, so who was grounded for _three fucking months? No phone! Three months?_ What happens if I get kidnapped, but no!

Dad looked in the rear-view mirror as we drove down the highway. "Cheer up, kiddo, this'll be fun!"

"Uh, huh," I whispered petulantly.

Mom's head snapped around. "Chloëssima Willow Sherman, don't you give your papi no sass, you hear me, young lady! You don't get a new and improved attitude right this second, I swear to God I will beat your ass until you do!"

"_I said 'uh, huh'!"_ I whined.

Mamma's face went white. "You sassin' me? You ..."

"No, mamma!" I said quickly, scared. She did _not_ mess around when she was beating. Fifteen didn't mean anything to her. I was under her roof, and _spare the rod, spoil the child _was her watchword.

I was not a child. So I put forward. But that didn't matter.

And I definitely wasn't spoiled.

The good Dr. Sherman, the man of the house, put his hand on Mamma's leg.

"Connie," he said mildly.

Daddy was always the peacemaker.

Mom looked at him.

"She's trying, okay?" he said. "Let's try, too."

Her eyes narrowed to slits. She quieted right down and faced front and became stone.

They didn't argue in front of me: it set a bad example.

But I knew, tonight, after I went to bed, there was going to be a 'discussion,' and it wasn't going to be nice around the house for days afterward, because Daddy would win. He always did.

But who's fault was it? Always?

Yeah. Welcome to my world.

"You work so hard, Clifford!" Mom said. "We work so hard, and this is the ..."

"Connie," Daddy said.

Mamma seethed.

"We do," he said diplomatically, "and she does, too, right? She's doing well in school and in swim and track. She's a good kid."

"_Hmmphf!"_ Mamma snorted.

"Chlō," he said back to me, ignoring Mamma's own version of sass-back, "we're just wanting to show you a bit more of the world than High School. It's just one day, sweetie, and you may actually learn something, and you may actually have fun. Give it a try, sweetie, okay?"

I bit my lip, "Yes, Daddy," I said.

I did _not_ say _'hmmphf!' _just like Mamma did. I want that on record. I also want to point out that Daddy's definition of fun is, like, _really_ different than mine.

But I didn't dare say any of this. I was already in the hot house. I didn't need Mamma to reach back and throw me out of the car ... with it still going 'fast' down the highway, that is: 'fast,' according to the old people driving up front.

You do know SUVs do go at least one mile per hour faster than the speed limit, don't you? You do know the speed limit is the _slowest_ anyone drives on the I-5, don't you? Like, it's _illegal _to drive _slower _than the speed limit?

But no. I watched car after car whip past us like we were standing still, and I hoped to God none of my friends were in any of those cars and recognized Daddy's car. I hoped they were all at school now, but what if _they_ were going to _their_ daddy's and mommy's jobs for today, too. And, omg, what if ...

No, none of my friends' parents worked at Daddy's practice, _thank God!_

If I had to introduce my parents to my friends, I'd die of shame. I wonder if I could get a paper bag with holes for my eyes so I could hide my face today.

...

"Daddy," I said in a tiny voice.

Mamma snapped her head around and glared at me.

I guess today I could do no right.

"Where are we going? Why are we going here? Why aren't we going to your office?"

Daddy chuckled and Mamma turned back to face front, her whole body radiating pride looking up at the huge glass skyscraper we were disappearing into.

"Your papi has a _real_ job now, Shug!" Momma declared proudly.

Daddy harrumphed. "The clinic is doing well," he countered defensively.

"Uh, huh," Momma said dismissively, taking in the glory of the building in front of us.

If you went to the top floor and accessed the roof and jumped up, I bet you would actually touch the sky.

It had its own parking garage.

It had badge-in drive through, which is normal, I guess, for a job, a real job, I guess.

But it had security people.

They were grey uniforms. With big, thick, black vests — _bullet proof? _— and they had guns. I saw two guys with machine guns. I saw another guy with a shotgun.

One of the guys was a girl. She looked fucking bad ass, as bad ass as the guys, and they looked _totally_ bad ass.

Three guards at the point where you drove into the parking garage? And I was like ... _seriously?_

Daddy worked with the fruitloops and the nuts, and okay, the _'clinically depressed' _ and the ADDs and the Aspbergers (or, the PC term: "ASD" — "autism spectrum disorder" ... what_ever)_ and the PTSDs and nobody who'd _ever,_ like, open up with one of those machine guns and kill everybody in the office.

Like what happened a few weeks ago in the MidWest? Yeah, that.

But there were no security guards at the building that had Daddy's practice, because nobody cared about them, the fringe element; just Daddy.

Daddy should get combat pay, 'cause what happens to us when a psycho lets loose and kills him, and people think the _Sixth Sense_ is just a movie. News flash: it's my fucking life, thanks!

Whenever Daddy comes home and says he had a really interesting or difficult case that day, I get, like, scared. Will that 'interesting case' find our address and come and hunt us down, because Daddy tried to straighten out somebody's fucked-up life?

People pity people with PTSD? What about me?

The security guards filled me with wonder and with dread.

The only reason why you have metal detectors at school? 'Cause there're kids with guns.

The only reason why you'd have security forces at the entrances to your building? Because something inside is ... 'interesting' enough that you needed to shoot people outside from getting it.

That, or you have to keep what's inside ... inside.

I regretted indulging in oatmeal with my yogurt this morning. It was doing flip-flops in my stomach now.

...

I had to sign in, ... and then sign an NDA.

I didn't know what an NDA was.

Mamma signed in, and signed the NDA without reading it. When I looked at the piece of paper in Helvettica font-size 3 or something — the words were so tiny you needed a microscope, for God's sake! — I just _looked_ at it, is all, for God's sake, Mom was all like, _'Hurry up and sign the damn thing, Chloë!"_

At least _she_ called me 'Chloë,' and not 'Chlō' like Daddy did. I haven't been called that by anybody in school in like _years, okay?_

So I just signed the damned thing. Signed my life away, for all I know, and don't people read what they sign anymore, but no!

You know you sign an agreement with google, right? Every search you do, every email you send, they track it and keep a record of it, and sell it to the Government. Did you know that? You'd know that if you read their EULA.

But does anybody ever do that?

No.

Welcome to the World, Chloë, leave your privacy at the door, just like everybody else does.

So glad I'm just like every other sucker out there.

But that's better than being a bad little girl and catching hell from Mamma.

If Mamma ain't happy ... well, it fucking hurts, and that's in the Bible somewhere.

She uses a Bible on me, sometimes, and not her hand, when I'm really, really bad.

And it doesn't matter if anybody's over, friends, relatives, the mayor, if Mamma's pissed at me, I get what's coming to me.

I don't invite my friends over. Ever. I hang with them after school. When I get permission. And I'm home by curfew. And Mamma wonders why I don't have a boyfriend. Like, what would I do with him? Would she chaperone?

Omg! _Don't _give her that idea!

Daddy brought out his badge, and badged in when we were on the elevator.

"This is where I work," he said, his voice filled with pride.

And the elevator went down, down, down.

...

More guards.

"I'm sorry, sir," one told Daddy, "your visitors are not on the authorized list."

_Fine by me!_ I thought. Take me to school and get me the hell out of here!

Daddy seemed flustered for a second. He had the guard recheck. The guard rechecked. Our names weren't there.

Daddy wasn't the most organized person in the world. I bet he had to fill out some paperwork or something to get us here. Who wants to bet with me that he didn't do that in time? Or at all? Anyone?

"Call Dr. Weaver," he said to the guard.

The guard shrugged and started dialing a number at the security desk phone. Dad stayed by the desk.

"Daddy," I said quietly, "it's okay, really. You don't have to make a fuss on my account."

Daddy turned back and looked at me, confused. "Who's making a fuss?" he asked gruffly.

I rolled my eyes.

Why don't adults just _get it?_

"_Daddy ..." _I whined.

"Chloë," Daddy said tightly.

I shut up. When Daddy said my name, not my baby name, it meant he was getting annoyed, and he rarely lost his temper. Actually, he never did, but when he raised it voice, just a little bit at me...

Didn't that just send Mom on the warpath!

Speaking of which.

Her hand, like a vise, on my arm. "Chloëssima," she said curtly, "why don't we sit down while your father sorts this out," she 'suggested,' using her 'in front of company' voice she reserved for me when she was holding back what she was going to give me later.

"Yes, Mamma," I said humbly, and went with her to sit down.

And you wonder why I _so_ looked forward to today when I found out about this.

_Normal_ kids were in class now, bored to tears, or _getting ahead on their grades!_

Me? Treated like a child! I swear to God, a child!

The guard spoke a moment on the phone, nodded, looked up at Daddy, and handed him it.

This seemed to surprise both Daddy and the guard.

"Dr. Weaver," Daddy said.

His tone was one I hadn't heard before, it was filled with respectful deference. Daddy was always kind, patient, understanding, respectful ...

But deferent?

Who was this 'Dr. Weaver' that Daddy would defer to? Daddy was the smartest person in the World, as far as I could tell: he knew everything about everything and everybody, and that was annoying as hell, all the time, but it was something I just knew.

This was something I didn't know. Daddy didn't defer to anybody, because he was your equal, at least, if you were the best in the world, and if you weren't, then he was just better than you. He just never said that; even to himself.

This was new.

"Yes," he said, "I just wanted to show my wife and daughter my work here, if that's okay."

He paused a moment.

"Thank you, doctor," he said, "but you don't have to trouble yourself. I know how busy you are."

Then: "No, no, no!" he said quickly. "I don't mind at all, of course. I was just saying ..."

He waited.

"Certainly, doctor," he said. "We'll see you in a bit, then."

He handed the guard back the phone. Guard checked it, then hung it up.

Mamma pulled me out of the chair, and we headed to the desk.

"Okay, ..." Daddy said.

"I'm sorry, sir," the guard said.

Daddy stopped. "What is it now?" he asked.

"They can't go in until they're on the authorization list," the guard said.

"But Dr. Weaver just said ..." Daddy was working on maintaining his patience.

"Doesn't matter, sir," the guard said. "Nobody goes in unless they're on the list."

Daddy's eyes widened, and he stood just a little bit taller, and leaned just a little bit in.

_Oh, brother!_ I thought.

Once he set his mind to something, that was that, and hours? That didn't matter, he'd get his way, come hell or high water, and I could just see this conversation going on until they kicked us out of the building tonight.

I bit my lip.

"Ah!" said the guard. "There they are. Can I see your badges, please?"

My own eyes widened. I was just about ready to turn around and head for the elevator and get the hell out of here.

To give up.

But I guess we just showed up in the system.

Daddy never gave up.

I never did, too. I just didn't like to cause trouble, you know?

We showed the guards our badges, which was silly, but you know how it is. School security is like that, too: you go through the metal detector clear or you get cleared, and that's that. Rules are rules.

The guard let us all pass.

Daddy put his badge to a plate, then ...

Then the wall pulled itself away, and we plunged into darkness.

...

"Daddy, ..." I said.

"Chlō, Connie," Daddy said, pleased as punch, "this is John Henry."

Daddy turned to the man sitting at a big table in the center of the dark room, lit by huge screens covering the walls. "John Henry, this is my wife, Constance Sherman, and daughter, Chloë."

The man ... he had cables coming out of the top of his head, and then went up to the ceiling and disappeared up into it.

The screens ... they lit up as the man looked at us. They lit up with numbers and letters and images of lines connecting dots in a huge mess of spaghetti: a network, a very, very complicated network of connections.

"Hello," he said pleasantly, and smiled.

His smile was ... not there. _He _wasn't there. He just sat there, looking at us blankly, like saying 'hello' to somebody was the be-all and end-all, like it was the neatest thing in the world.

I looked at Mamma. _Severe retardation?_ I wondered.

Most people, okay, _everybody_ Daddy treated or 'saw' were high-functioning individuals.

This guy ... you could plant him, and he'd sprout leaves, it looked like.

"Hello, John Henry," I said carefully. I hid, a tiny little bit behind Mamma's thick arm.

John Henry took in everything, everything I did and said. His eyes narrowed slightly when I held onto Mamma a little bit more.

You're not supposed to do that. You're supposed to act naturally around alternately-enableds because you're supposed to _be_ natural and okay with them. If you're not, and you try to hide it, they can smell that on you a mile away.

But John Henry was just so ... _different!_

And something I noticed, as John Henry was noticing us.

Images.

Images were forming on the screens around us.

Of us.

Of me, looking, wide-eyed, at John Henry.

"Oh, my God!" I breathed out, and the images burst with colors and pixellation before being replaced with other things, then with images again, then with other things.

It was a brain-rush, looking at everything painted all around us, trying to take it in.

But I had just got it: a glimmer of it.

What John Henry was seeing, what John Henry was ... _thinking?_ was going up on those screens.

"Dad, ..." I said. "Is he ... are those ...?" I waved to the screens. Two screens filled with numbers, two others burst with light when I waved.

Daddy chuckled.

Mamma was looking around, too, but she was quiet. I think she was surprised.

But she's not supposed to be surprised; she's supposed to know everything.

Dad turned to us. "This is what I'm working on," he said, his voice filled with pride, "John Henry is a piece of tech from ZeiraCorp. He's connected to a computer so powerful it's in its own liquid-cooled room. The computer thinks, and it's my job to help John Henry and the computer to interact with human beings. I'm teaching John Henry to be a person."

Daddy smiled. "I have the neatest job in the world!"

He looked at us expectantly.

I looked at Mamma. She didn't look at me. I looked back at Daddy.

I didn't look at 'John Henry.'

I tried not to.

"Uh, ..." I said.

* * *

**A/N: **Hello, my dears. I had this dream, yesterday morning, and it was complete, with Chloë and Savannah and everything, so, you know, I wrote it, and stuff ... well, this prelude chapter. The rest of the story to come. John Henry is ... 'nice.' Chloë is nice. Savannah is ... poor Savannah. Well, we'll find out about her, now, won't we, phfina, because this time I've got the whole story, and it's a shorter one than Ridden, so as I write, you'll find out. God, and ffn, willing.


	2. Oh

**Chapter summary: **John Henry wasn't the most surprising thing we found out about Daddy's work today. I'm all surprised out, for, oh, the next three centuries or so. I think I wanna cry.

* * *

Okay, _that_ was ...

Actually, I don't know what that was, because Daddy showed us John Henry, but then what? Was John Henry going to ask me how my day at school went? Because it didn't, and even it did ... well, at least then I'd have something to say. But John Henry didn't ask, and what was I going to say to him? 'Um, hello? How are you?'

That would be a _stunner _of a conversation, wouldn't it?

There was just nothing to say to adults. They were them, and I was me, and they didn't understand me at all, but, I guess, I didn't have a clue about what made adults tick. I guess I just never cared, and never thought about it, until now.

But John Henry wasn't an adult. He wasn't even human. He was more like child, very sweet, and very, very focused.

_Creepsville!_

You know, something that Daddy would find 'very interesting.'

I suddenly became very interested in avoiding _everything_ Daddy found 'very interesting.'

So we just all stood around for a while, and like that wasn't awkward at all. The only person in the room who was cool as a cucumber was John Henry, and that was just weird. So, finally Dad said, "Well, ..." and shrugged.

I guess he wanted more of reaction to his neat work. Maybe I should have lit off some fireworks and celebrate today like the 4th of July? I don't know. I mean I totally didn't fucking know. I just wanted out of there, and so did Mamma.

She finally saved the day. "So, Cliff, where're the bathrooms around here?"

That's how Mamma saves the day.

Daddy had to escort us. He couldn't leave me in that room, _thank God!_ and he couldn't let Mom wander around the building and steal computers? Like she would know what to steal, or would want to.

Stealing's a sin. Lots of things are sins: like selling drugs, or not coming right home after school, or getting a B on your report card, or not having a boyfriend.

It's all in the Bible. You can look it up. 'Thou shalt not getteth below an A- on thinest report card.'

See? Told you it was there. King James.

'_King James'! _Who the _Hell_ was King James, anyway? You ever wonder that?

I haven't, 'cause that's a sin.

So Daddy had to escort us the the girl's bathroom. He had to badge out of the lab, first.

Mamma went into the girl's room, and she waddled to one of the stalls.

When I'm, like, three million years old, I swear to God I'm not going to be a big, fat ...

... something, like Mamma is. I want to grow old gracefully, like Gramma, sharp, thin, but ... she was really beautiful when she was a girl my age. I mean, _really_ beautiful. I saw an old brown picture of her sitting in a field of heather and daisies, and I was like ...

I was like, _wow!_ No wonder why Gramps snatched her right up, because she was a real looker, sweet, and pure, and beautiful, but you could tell, soulful, and sharp as a whip, like she was to her dying day.

I want to be a woman like Gramma, would would brew her smart-people's tea for me. It tasted funny, until she added just a touch of honey, but I never complained. I wanted Gramma to be proud of me.

And she was proud I was smart, I guess, but ...

But, yeah. Well, ... I was smart, at least.

Oh, well.

Mamma came back out of the stalls.

"That was ..." I said, trying to break the ice.

"Don't you criticize what your father does," she retorted sharply.

"No," I said defensively, "I was just saying that it was ... um, interesting, is all."

Mamma finished washing her hands, flicking the excess water into the sink.

"Pays a hell of a lot more than the insurance companies pay for your father's patients," she said.

"Oh," I said.

And she added at the same time, "... a _hell_ of a lot more."

"Oh," I said again.

I thought being a Psychotherapist and a Psychiatrist meant you didn't have money worries. And we did okay. We did more than okay. Nothing ... _rich,_ though, you know? We didn't have the BMW, but we had a nice brownstone in a gated community.

I thought we were doing well.

And, me, go to college? How many kids these days, even in SoCal, ... _especially_ in SoCal, that wasn't even an option. Colleges and the Government weren't so open-handed with scholarships anymore, and being smart was nice, but so what? So was everybody trying to apply and get in, and get their shot.

America, the Beautiful.

For some.

It used to be the Rat Race was defined as trying to keep up and trying to get ahead. But now, more and more, it was just trying to survive, month to month.

And some of the ... 'discussions,' that Mommy and Daddy had after my lights-out/no-more-studying-Chlō time — _God!_ I hated that name! — were about ... money, and _'Clifford, how are we going to pay for __your__ insurance? Why can't you have a nice, stable job, like everybody else does?' 'Like everybody else is getting fired from, Connie?' _Daddy would ask right back, and that would just ...

The house was unpleasant for days after very quiet conversations like that, that my parents didn't want me to hear.

But I heard them.

Here's a shocker for you. I don't want to be a doctor.

I look at my dad, and all he goes through, he carries the weight of everybody's problems but his own when he comes home after a long, long day, and then he gets up really early to do it all over again.

You know the highest suicide rates in the country? Dentists, yes, but doctors, too. The patients don't pay, and the insurance won't cover anything, and doctors are caught in the middle with mounting med school bills and then all the costs of maintaining a practice.

Doctors die right at 51 years of age, ... right after they've amortized their med school bills ... and now are leaving their families with mountains of debt from their practices.

I don't want to be a doctor.

But ... if being a doctor is out, what's in?

I don't know.

I just don't know.

It's impossible for kids out of law school to get a job now-a-days; there's just too many of them now, I guess trying to cash in on all the lawsuits of people suing their doctors (oh, yeah, _don't_ get me started. Daddy's been sued _twice! _Fucking nightmare, both times, and now we have those bills to pay, because Daddy was innocent, but to prove that...? Fucking lawyers! I hate every one of them! ... those that are lucky enough to have jobs, that is.)

America has become a place where only the people at the very top make it all, take it all, and have it all. So what do I do? Run for Congress? But two years only? No. Then ... the Senate?

_Senator Chloë!_

Like that would ever happen. That would happen to one of my future, never-to-be, boyfriends.

If he had the Jungle Fever while he was dating me.

Because I'm Black.

Yeah. How many of you guessed that by now? We've made it good, haven't we? Daddy a doctor; Mamma a doctor's wife, and me, their poster child, getting straight As and already varsity swimming and track in her freshman year, so maybe, just maybe I'll get a scholarship that way, because the NAACP isn't so generous anymore, and Howard University needs money these days, too.

But even if I did get a scholarship to pay for school, or some of it, and even though I'm a straight-A student, guess what everybody's going to think when they see me?

'_Basketball scholarship?'_ No, I don't have quite the height, and, worse:

'_Oh, they let you in because you're Black, and they have to meet their quota.'_

Unless I go to a historically Black college, everybody's going to look at me, and that's what they're going to think.

Because, unless it's a community college, how many black kids, and I mean, outside the basketball and football teams, do you see at college? Enough to be a presence? Enough to be accepted? Enough not to be remarkable?

They call college the 'ivory tower,' you know. You know why?

'Cause it's lily White. Oh, with a few token Asian girls. You know, for the White guys to have guilt-free sex with, 'cause that's what Asian girls are for: consequence-free fucking.

And look at me calling the kettle black.

Heh: 'black.'

Or Asian.

Doesn't matter to White people. It never did.

Then how come, all I want to be is White? or be accepted by Whites? Why is that so vitally important to me that I need that? But not too much, because I don't want to be a sell-out, Uncle Tom'ing it. Why?

I'll tell you why.

Because every morning, when I wake up, and I look in the mirror, and I see that I'm Black.

Daddy would so _love_ to have me as one of his patients. All his other patients are White. He'd go right back to them, and their White People's Problems and be grateful he was having an easy day, compared to having to talk with me.

And the irony of it is that I'm a privileged Black girl. Isn't that fucked up? I've got it made with a doctor-Daddy and going to a school that has the 'Latino Problem' ... gangs, you know, ... reigned in under tight control, so I can actually just concentrate on school, and not have to deal with the shit of being Black in America since ... I don't know, before 1776.

But that's what it was to be Black in America now. How many Black people had we seen at Daddy's work? Nobody. John Henry was White, too. Blacks were the invisibles in this Country. Even in SoCal, especially in SoCal. Remember the Rodney King thing? That didn't happen during the Civil War, that happened just twenty years ago, and the police were called out, not to suppress the rioting, but to channel it to the Black and to the Korean neighborhoods. See, it's okay, if your Black, to riot, loot, steal, and kill, as long as you're doing that to the Asians, but you step foot in a White neighborhood ...

This is our Country, today. This is what I'm growing up in: it's not racist, not anymore ...

Especially if you're White.

Mamma and I left the washroom, a big-boned Black woman and her skin-and-bones daughter, sticking out like sore thumbs in this lily White ZeiraCorp building.

Daddy took us back to the guard checkpoint outside the lab.

"Has Dr. Weaver come by?" Daddy asked the guard.

"No, sir," the guard answered. "No visitors since you left."

Daddy nodded. "Uh, thanks" he grunted to the guard. He turned to Mamma and me. "She usually gets tied up with other things. Let's stop by her office and say hello. I'd like to introduce you."

Mamma. "'Her'?"

Daddy smiled. "Now, now, Connie," he chuckled.

But Mamma wasn't laughing. Not at all.

Daddy's smile died on his face. "Nothing to be jealous about, Connie; you know that," he muttered.

Mamma frowned and brushed her hair back with one tightly controlled sweep. "Oh?" she said quietly.

_Oh, boy!_ I thought, looking between the two of them. I don't know what this qualified as, but I don't think the word 'discussion' would be what they'd be having later.

I just looked between them, not knowing what to do, just wishing I was a million miles away.

Or, put it this way: this whole 'take your daughter to work day' thing?

Wasn't this going just great? Just great.

Daddy looked at me, and he saw it on my face, too. Not that I suspected him of anything, he was like ... I mean like ... cheat on Mom? He was the most steadfast, faithful man on the planet. Not that I knew, but I just did. He didn't care anything about us at home and work at work, and other women? He didn't even see them. He didn't even know that they existed. If they were his patients, he treated them, and if they weren't, they were just there and that was it.

So ... but ... why hadn't he told Mom about Dr. Weaver, and that she was a woman?

That's why I felt betrayed. He knew how jealous Mamma is, and he didn't tell her this? Did it just slip his mind? How could it have?

Daddy's face was sad and sour now. "C'mon," he said, "let's go," and turned toward the elevator.

Mamma looked at his back for one full second, then followed right along. She was lost in thought, but her steps were as sure and as strong as ever. If anything, she was even more firm and deliberate than usual, and that was saying something.

To be a Black woman, you have to be the strongest person in the world, because, for the most part, you're the one who's holding the family together.

Because to be a Black woman, time after time, is to watch your man leave you. To have to watch the world crumble around you. And then you have to pick up the pieces of your shattered dreams and life, and make sure your kids have enough to survive, and maybe even have a chance, a chance you don't have any more.

Watching Mamma, following Daddy, I saw a strong, sad woman, getting ready to take the blow of the world when her man, a very highly paid doctor, left her and me for this Dr. Weaver person, obviously smart, obviously successful, obviously in a good working relationship.

* * *

**A/N: **Hi, my dears!

Did you know in chapter 1 that Chloë was Black? Does knowing that change anything about her for you? I knew she was from the get-go, so it didn't 'change' anything for me, because she already was in my mind.

Chloë's a lot stronger than me, and has more friends, and fits in better, because she tries harder than I ever did. She works at it. I didn't. The thing is: she has to. She has to prove herself as a woman, as I did, but she also has to prove herself as a Black woman, and, in this Country, that's a lot harder than many of us who are just given being White, give credit for. A coworker told me one time, we were talking over lunch, and she said, 'you don't wake up every morning, and know that you're Black,' and her words, and the resignation she felt, saying them just really hit me and stuck with me, even today, more than two years, and two jobs, later.

I wish I had Chloë as a friend in High School: I think I would've been a lot less lost, because Chloë feels a lot more grounded than me. I wish Savannah had a friend like Chloë, somebody she could turn to and confide in. But that's just not going to happen. Savannah's only eight, so why would she and Chloë ever be friends? They just don't have any shared experiences to relate to.

And, besides, with Dr. Weaver ... well, that's never going to happen. Savannah's never going to have anything normal in her life. Not since she was four, so her whole life has been ... this.

But that's next chapter, not this one.

**ps: **It's one thing to be Black, and Beautiful.

"I'm Black. And I'm Beautiful."

But Chloë, she's Black ... but she doesn't think she's beautiful, ... worse, she has confirmation of that from her own mother, who, loving her, having her own sets of problems, just wants her girl to eat something, for God's sake, and ... be normal and have a boyfriend, like every other well-adjusted young girl has. That's all she wants of her daughter: a normal, healthy life. Her husband would question, 'But what is normal, Constance?' but then he should leave his analyzing at the door when he comes home, shouldn't he? And what does he know about raising a young girl in this hard world? Was he ever a young girl? Did he ever have a hard day in his life? Thank you, Clifford, go unwind and watch the game or something, please! I have a family to raise here for you to come home to after your 'hard' day at work.

And the thing is, everybody's right here, except Chloë, because she _is_ beautiful, she's so God-damn beautiful it hurts to look at her looking at herself like she isn't... _(hm, does that sound like anyone you know, `phfina?)..._ She says she's concentrating on more important things than her looks, but ...

But if everybody's right ... why is everybody so sad?

I heard a fortune once, maybe it was in a fortune cookie, idk. It went like this: "You can either be right, or you can be happy."

I guess ... I still have yet to learn this myself.

Oh, well. I'll keep trying, 'kay? Will you, too?

'Bye, my dears!

kisses, `phfina


	3. ceci n'est pas une anguille

**Chapter summary:** So, ZeiraCorp's mascot is a six-foot long silver sea snake that looks out over everybody working. What do they feed it, I wonder? Engineers that don't meet their quotas or something? Ha, ha! That would be so funny if it were true. Actually not. Not funny, I mean. And not true, too, right? I guess.

* * *

We went up, up, up in the elevator in silence, all the way to the top floor of the building, and then Daddy had to badge us onto the floor from the waiting area outside the elevator. There were people working on the top floor, but it wasn't cubical-hell, like I thought it'd be. There were offices and offices, but everybody was dressed very formally, more so than Daddy, who always chose frumpy-business-casual, so that people felt comfortable around him, but knew it was professional and serious, at the same time. We walked through the floor, and I saw men dressed in business suits, wearing ties and their jackets, and women in blouses and skirts and heels, and I don't know if that's how people dress in whatever part of the country you live, but you have to remember that this is Southern California, and people ...

People just don't dress like that, especially in technology company. Jeans, you know? And if they wanted to dress up, they'd put on loafers or maybe even a collared shirt.

Nah, that'd be pushing it. But not here.

We ended up a portal to a wide open space. You've heard of negative space? This corner office was filled with ... 'positive' space. There was just, at one end, a simple steel flat-top desk, a black leather couch big enough to sleep on with a low coffee table against a 'wall' that was all window, and that was it. An office as big as our brownstone house in the suburbs had a total of three pieces of furniture. The desk didn't even have a computer on it that I could see.

Imprinted by the door was a plaque: "Dr. Catherine Weaver, President, CEO, ZeiraCorp."

I thought it, but I did not say it: _'Whoa!'_

Daddy peeked his head in. "I guess she stepped out," he said to noone in particular.

He and Mamma hadn't spoken since our elevator ride up.

Daddy's phone rang. He looked at the caller and nodded.

"Dr. Weaver," he said, "we're just at your office. I guess we just missed you?"

He smiled at her response, and covered the phone with his hand, whispering to us _soto voce: 'She went down to the lab to meet us.'_

"Oh," he said, "I guess we crossed paths. Did you want us to come back down to meet you?"

I wondered how many times we could go up and down the elevators before they went on strike. We just went up to the twenty-fourth floor from the sub-basement level.

I wandered away from the phone conversation a bit.

I actually hate phones, not having one. Everybody avoids everybody now with them: texting, sexting, playing candy crush, whatever, but not talking with the person in front of you anymore. And when they're on a phone conversation, they shout into the phone, like they can say anything, very private things, in very public areas. And people to make phone calls in the bathroom to their girlfriends?

I have no words for you, because 'scumbag,' is too good a word for you. Calling your girlfriend while you're taking a shit? What's sad is how many of my friends have gotten calls because bf has some time on his hands while he's taking a dump.

The only time you have to call your girlfriend is when you ...

_Ah! Gross,_ okay? Just gross!

I went to a full-length window of Dr. Weaver's office, facing into the rest of the building, and received a shock: it wasn't a window, actually; it was an aquarium!

I don't know how many gallons of water were in this thing, but 'a lot' didn't even begin to cover it. It was a very vertical kind of thing, but it was quite wide, too. The ceiling was ten feet up, maybe? Fifteen feet? The aquarium stretched from just above the floor to inches below the ceiling ... and it was at least as wide as it was tall.

The mind boggled, looking into it, and then, through it, into Dr. Weaver's office.

Everything she did was transparent: everybody could see her if they looked into the office...

And ...

She could see what everybody else on the floor was doing, too.

Your boss looking over your shoulder? Well, I suppose that was one way to motivate people.

But, all your workers looking at you all the time? That's one way to keep the boss honest.

At the bottom of the aquarium was a long silver cable, coiled.

_That's odd,_ I thought and looked down at it.

It wasn't a cable. It was a snake? A sea snake? An eel? It was as thick as my arm. No, thicker, and long, too: five, six feet long.

"Daddy, ..." I said.

Dad waved me off brusquely, displeased at my interruption. "Okay," he said, continuing his conversation, "so we'll meet you there then."

Then: "Okay, ... okay. See you there, doctor," and he ended the call.

"Yes, Chlō," Daddy said, "what is it?"

"Well," I said, "I think this eel is dead, Daddy."

That got his attention. He came over the fish tank, looking down at the eel.

"I think it's sleeping, sweetie," he said gently. "It does that a lot."

Daddy would know, wouldn't he, if he was by Dr. Weaver's office often.

"But," I said, "fish have to move all the time to breathe, and its gills aren't moving."

I was looking intently up at him. What I was saying wasn't some inconsequential thing that only applied to young girls. I wanted him to get that. I wasn't some Dr. Weaver, but I was somebody.

Daddy returned my look, intently, then looked back at the tank.

"So," he said slowly, "the fish is dead."

"Yes, Daddy," I said, then bit my lip. I could see all kinds of trouble people going to to get the eel out of the tank only to find it was sleeping.

But it wasn't sleeping. Its gills had to be moving, all the time, for it to breathe.

And its gills weren't moving.

"I'm pretty sure," I equivocated.

Mamma walked up to us. "He looks plenty alive to me," she declared.

She was always declaring things.

"Mamma, ..." I began, and looked to the tank to point to the non-moving gills.

The eel was looking right at me. It had raised its head about a foot from the tank bottom and its dorsal fins were fanning the water around its head, keeping it upright.

It looked at me out of the corner of its eye. Its face was expressionless; its jaw used more to rip other fish apart, not to convey disdain...

But that's what it was doing. It was looking right at me with an expressionless expression that said: 'who does this idiot think she is, saying that I'm dead?'

It rotated its whole body slightly, coils and all, and that gave the impression that it was tilting its head at me with a supercilious look. Its fins stilled, and its head returned to its coiled body. It tucked itself into itself, and reclosed its eyes, shutting me out of its world, as if I were beneath its notice.

"Oh," I said. "Uh ..."

Daddy squatted down and watched the eel intently.

"There," he said. "See, sweetie? The gills are moving, but just slightly. You may not have noticed if you weren't looking very closely. Come, look," he said.

I squatted down beside him. I looked. They were moving.

"Oh," I said quietly.

That's all I could say now.

But I saw what I saw. I _was_ looking closely before, and the gills weren't moving at all, and now they were, just barely, but they were moving.

Just enough so that anything I said would be wrong. Just enough so that it proved for everybody else in the world that I was just a kid, and what did I know?

Daddy stood up. "Let's go, sweetie," he said kindly.

Daddy was literally talking down to me, and, _boy, _did I feel it, even if he were being nice.

"Okay," I said, and rose, myself.

I looked down at the eel. I wanted to say something mean to it.

I was so low, that even an eel picked on me? Why did it pick me to be mean to? Just because I noticed, and knew a thing or two, so I was the one looking like a fool?

But have a conversation with a sea snake? Now wouldn't that be all _Harry Potter, _the young school child off to school talking to a snake. But in _Harry Potter, _the snake talked back.

"Wouldn't it be something if you talked back to me, huh, Mr. Eel, you faker!" I whispered angrily.

The eel opened one eye and regarded me indolently, then it shut its eye again, returning to stillness.

The message was clear, and intended just for me: _Beat it, kid: you're boring me!_

_Of all the ...!_ I thought angrily, and rapped the tank with my knuckles.

_Ouch! _That hurt. The glass felt it was a foot thick: it didn't even move, it didn't even hum in vibration nor cause a ripple in the tank.

So how did the eel hear me?

It totally ignored me now.

"Chlō," Daddy called.

I grimace and pulled myself away from the tank.

If I were, okay, on the other side of that glass, _in_ the aquarium? I'd show that ... sea snake a thing or two about what happens to you when you dis Chloë Sherman, I tell you what.

That six-foot long, probably poisonous sea snake. With a sharp, vise-like jaws.

Okay, so probably not, but I'm just saying!

I walked with Mamma and Daddy back to the elevator, and we went down, down, down back to the lab.

Or so I thought.

I thought wrong.

* * *

**A/N: **Hello, my lovelies!

The chapter title, _ceci n'est pas une anguille ('this is not an eel'),_ is a play on words from the (in)famously-(sub)titled painting by Magritte, where the image is a pipe and the caption _ceci n'est pas une pipe ('this isn't a pipe')._

The caption is a 'play-on-thoughts': it's _not_ a pipe, it's a painting of one.

I think Magritte might've been pleased at my outright larceny.

Maybe.

So. I seem to have attracted some _Terminator_ and _The Sarah Connor Chronicles _fans.

Hello! ... and welcome!

Hm, so ... yes. I should have expected this, but, I didn't, so there it is. So, as you see, new dear readers, my style of story-telling is somewhat different than what you expect, isn't it? It's not the blam-blam-you're-dead-ma'am (nor is it the 'wham, bam, thank you, ma'am' kind of story ... at present). It's not Jameron, as neither John nor Cameron show up in this story. Nor is it Sameron, as Sarah Connor doesn't show up either.

This story is about an OC character named Chloë, the daughter of Dr. Sherman (canon) and about Savannah Weaver, Dr. Catherine Weaver's ... 'daughter.' Yeah: ... 'daughter.'

And a terminator, because this _is_, after all, a _TSSC_-story.

So, not what you're used to, so, but ... what kind of warning should I put up at the beginning: _"Warning: phfina-style story ahead. Be prepared for a lot of ... non-plot character-driven ... 'stuff' to happen"?_ Huh, should I put that up at the beginning of the story?

Should I put that warning up at the beginning of your lives? _"Warning: a lot of stuff __won't__ happen, but what will is your interaction (or lack thereof) with other people and what you think about yourself"?_ Should I put that warning up for you, too?

This story is not a blam-blam-thank-you-ma'am-plot-driven story. This is a character-driven story, developed through _minor, minor_ characters, at that, who happen to think they are the centre of the universe? Sounds familiar? If it doesn't, it should. Unless you happen to be Steve Jobs, reading this story, and you're not, because he's dead. Most other people, besides maybe Mother Teresa and Mahatma Ghandi, can't hold a candle to him.

Oh, and Sandra-oh-my-fucking-God-take-me-naow-Bullock. One word: _Gravity._ It was love at first sight, from my side, anyway. Yeah, she's older but ...

Hm. I digress.

So, back on point: yes, there's going to be gun play, yes, there's going to be robotic-lesbiotic smexin' (because, well, it's me, and well: there's Terminators in here, for God's sake, and Terminators need some good luvin' (or need to be givin' it a whole lot harder than any human can take it) between shooting people, and each other (just for fun, because, you know: why would a terminator shoot another terminator with current-tech guns? Yeah, exactly: just for fun, but movie after movie after episode, terminators shoot at terminators, and nothing happens, and nobody in the audience raises their hands and says, 'okay, you're shooting each other, again ... _why?'_), too!

That was a `phfina-aside, by the way. If you're not used to that ... well, if you keep reading, you'll get used to them, and maybe even might to start enjoying the ride of the wave that is the sick, little, twisted mind of mine... that sees what everybody doesn't see, because they just see _'normal' _and_ 'what is.'_ And I look around at the horror of life that everybody else just ignores (they call it 'borin'') and write it down for you to read.

And that're how my stories go: not with the plot dictating the pace, not with the characters dictating the plot (nor the authoresse, for that matter), because _you,_ my dears, don't dictate ... well, anything: what I write, how I write it, the plot in _your_ life, the characters you interact with, or avoid, none of that.

Because, last I checked, you're not Steve Jobs.

Yes, I own a macbook. How did you guess?

And that's the story you're getting here: not plot-driven, not even character-driven, but a story where the characters _are_ driven, and just ... wrong! about everything, and they have no clue how fucked up they are, because everybody else is _as_ fucked up, or moreso, so they think being fucked up is 'normal' or 'okay,' because they have _no clue_ what 'good' is, ... they've never seen it.

Well, maybe Andy Goode did, but he's dead, so what did that get him? Besides a couple of dates with Sarah Connor, which, on balance, is way-the-hell-better than my life's story, so good on you, Andy Goode, you dead fuck.

No, I'm not bitter. I'm a realist.

And you're not.

**ps: **If you need it spelled out for you, the above was my 'disclaimer' text. You have been warned (said in scary little ominous `phfinaescque-y tones, which is a little bit silly for me to be saying 'you have been warned,' and 'this is your last warning,' because am I Morpheus? No. And he doesn't show up in this story, either, because this surely ain't no crossover, neither!)

You're welcome.

**pps:** Oh, and for those of you who _are stayin' ..._ like ... Rayanne?

_Rayanne, Rayanne, Imma know she's a-stayinnnn'!_

_*ahem!*_ For those of you who _do_ decide to ride this little train-wreck known as `phfina's writings aka: the Thoughts of a Young Lady of No Prospects on Life, Relationships, and Everything (that is Nothing Else, really, right, dear readers?), well, firstly, _why? _Don't you wanna read something, well ... _'normal' _(which, AFAIK, means 'insipidly predictable'), and secondly ...

Thank you. ... and welcome to the very, very exclusive club of those dear readers to read some of the things that I've written, and, shockingly to me, have gotten something out of it.

kisses, `phfina

**ppps: **Yes, you get lots of ps's in my story-chapters, and yes, _some_times they go on longer than the story proper, 'cause I got my ... stuff I'm dealing with, you know? So ... you know: deal. :p ... or not. Your choice. Whatevs, `phfina says carefreely-carelessly, the reckless-abandon girl that she is (um, so if I'm reck_less, ..._ what's ... 'reck_ful'?_ Have you ever wondered that?)


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